Government Questions Eligibility for Health Insurance Subsidies

Since June 1st, hundreds of thousands of people have been contacted by the government regarding their eligibility for subsidized health care. Of the eight million people who signed up for healthcare through the government exchanges, two million provided information that differed from information in government records. The Obama administration has been asking those individuals for additional documentation such as birth certificates, social security cards, and driver’s licenses. The government will use the documents to correct irregularities in areas including income, citizenship, and immigration status. Consumer advocates worry that many people who fail to provide the information will be forced to repay the subsidies next April.

Representative Diane Black, Republican of Minnesota, attributes the problem to the government’s having enrolled people “before the systems were in place to accurately confirm eligibility.” Others such as Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, say such criticism stems from Republicans’ “unending zeal to undermine the Affordable Care Act.”

In any event, the government has put thousands on notice that they “need to follow up as soon as possible” and if they don’t send the needed documents, they risk losing their marketplace coverage.

Disclaimer

The pieces here represent the position and analysis of the individual authors and not those of the Hofstra Bioethics Center or The Gitenstein Institute for Health Law & Policy. Each author is responsible for the accuracy of the citations and substance of the text itself.